Poisonous hatred and nationalism in Ukraine are taking firm root. What is happening?
According to most Western media, Russia has invaded a sovereign country, and it is the duty of the democratic citizens of the world to oppose it.
Russian media outlets present a beleaguered population in eastern Ukraine, besieged by an army of fascists and yearning for liberation by Russian tanks.
Like many media reports, both versions are about 10 percent truth and 90 percent propaganda.
The big development is the change in the fortunes of the rebels fighting against the Ukrainian government. In early September, they inflicted major defeats on the Ukrainian army and opened a second front in the south-east of the country.
This comes after months of defeats and the retreat of separatists from key cities. For a while, they seemed on the verge of surrender. It is very unlikely that the rebels could have turned their fortunes around so sharply without serious aid from somewhere – namely Russia.
Putin’s regime has continued to provide military support and advice to the rebels, despite their blunder of shooting down the MH-17 civilian plane. At the same time, this is not a Russian invasion – Putin’s plan is to use the rebels to destabilise the Ukrainian regime while simultaneously remaining at arm’s length from the conflict and avoiding all-out war between Russia and the West.
And this is the crucial issue – the logic of his position has trapped him. If Putin were to cease support for the rebels, they would likely be overrun and crushed by the Ukrainian army.
The Ukrainian government, led by Petro Poroshenko, has positioned itself as a staunch ally of NATO and the West, and has jumped at the chance to host NATO military bases on Ukrainian soil.
If Russia is to continue to project its power in the region and hold the Eastern European countries to ransom with its supply of natural gas, and if the Russian elite is to enrich itself through the misery of the millions it oppresses, then the Russian state cannot afford to lose Ukraine. Russia is a weak imperialist power that doesn’t have the strength to take on the West militarily.
Added to that is the enormous amount of propaganda emanating from the Kremlin – whose only concern, so the story goes, is the well-being of Russians in eastern Ukraine. This narrative is largely responsible for Putin’s high domestic rating, something he could only have dreamed of two years ago. And so, Putin plays a game of implausible deniability.
On the other hand, Ukrainian president Poroshenko, an old political player with a long history of corruption, has managed to climb to the top by jumping on the anti-Russia bandwagon and letting loose the most virulent Ukrainian nationalism – which found fertile soil in a country long oppressed by Russia.
He has portrayed himself as the man who can curb Russian influence and has become a dear friend of the US, Europe and Australia. Under his command, the Ukrainian army has unleashed a vicious rampage, indiscriminately murdering Ukrainian citizens in its “anti-terrorist operation” against the rebels.
Part of the reason that Poroshenko has been so confident and aggressive is that the West has time and again pledged itself to his regime. Ukrainian tanks could not shell civilians with such impunity if not for the blind eyes of the world’s governments and media. Yet as the rebels attempt to hold negotiations, and as numerous cease-fires are called and broken, the only road for Poroshenko is straight into the abyss of war.
Were he to come to some agreement with the rebels, he would likely be ousted by the right wing oligarchs on whose support he depends, and whose project of ultra-nationalist consolidation and anti-Russian, pro-European orientation requires a brutal onslaught against the separatists.
The European Union spits invectives at Putin and at Russia. But the problem for it is that it is overwhelmingly reliant on US military power. And the US has problems of its own. The quagmire in Iraq, the rise of ISIS and the realignment of Middle Eastern imperialist relations have left the US stretched and unable to intervene militarily in Ukraine.
The US doesn’t want an all-out confrontation with Russia, but the logic of protecting US global domination forces the US behind Poroshenko. It is the basis also of escalating sanctions against Russia and hypocritical rhetoric about how terrible it is for one country to intervene in another.
The Abbott government, whose sudden desire to send military assistance to Ukraine might raise a few eyebrows, is really a vicious piranha that can see the benefit of playing the game of sharks. The Australian state has a long history of support for US imperial adventures, for the simple reason that the Australian state has its own imperialist interests in the Asia-Pacific and the US is the guarantor of its impunity.
Send a few troops to Ukraine, and then remind the US of Australia’s commitment to “democracy” next time it needs cover for propping up a brutal police state or invading one of the world’s poorest countries. And of course, anything that distracts people from the deeply unpopular budget is a plus in the government’s book.
